There are various themes of OCD. These can include perfectionism, religious scrupulosity, checking, contamination, harm OCD (HOCO), pedophilia OCD (POCD), relationship OCD (ROCD), and homosexuality OCD (HOCD), as well as purely obsessional OCD. I have dealt with all of them, and my current form is pedophilia OCD.

A few Christmas’ ago I read an article on people.com that changed my life. I was concerned that the article might be a trigger, as it focused on a celebrity being arrested for possessing and viewing child pornography. But, I decided to read it and challenge the anxiety that I was experiencing because I am skilled in handling this and backing away would be giving into the ritual. I read the article and immediately began to experience intense anxiety, heart racing, worrying that the person in the article could be ME!! “I don’t understand what would make the celebrity do that?” “What are they thinking!” “I don’t understand how they enjoy that!” I became hyper-vigilant and began to reassure myself that I was not the individual in the article. Notice the word “reassure” because that will come back into play later.

I then began to play scenarios in my mind to provide more reassurance that I was not the person in the article. “Ok, this is not you. You did not do anything.” “I would never do that.” And then the thought came that would change my life: “If it was presented to me, I would peek but never go actively looking.” At that point, I knew I was “done” and when I say “done” I mean, “OCD had grabbed me by the neck and I would not be released.”

At that moment, I ran to my significant other and shouted, “OMG!” and explained what had happened. My significant other attempted to reassure me that I was not the person in the article, that my thoughts were common ones, and that I am obsessing about this. “But did you hear what I said, I am guilty!” “I need to be able to say with 100% certainty that I would not do that and I cannot!” “If I thought this, then obviously I am just as guilty! Even if I would just peek and not be the actually downloader or possessor, I am just as sick!” From there, I immediately contacted my therapist, depression set in, and I attempted to use the tools I had learned from past treatment with no success. I was already down the rabbit hole and no one would be able to save me.

The depression progressed, as did the OCD, with me smiling on the outside and dying on the inside. “What kind of person thinks that? And you said you would peek if presented with this material. That makes you equal to the celebrity.” Isolation started to kick in, staying in my bed, decreased appetite, and people around me knew I was struggling. The anxiety and depression were only exacerbated with the other responsibilities that I had such as employment/relationship/friendships/and daily living. I began to see a psychiatrist to address medication since I had been on the same medication and dose for quite some time. Nothing provided relief, or if it did, it was temporary. The self-hatred, low self-esteem, and perfectionism started to increase and as I became more depressed, I entered the world of suicidal ideation. How am I back here? I had worked on this for so long in the past, and I am back here again. Reviewing old therapy notes, tapes, books, articles, reaching out to the authors were all rituals that I was engaged in to try and relieve the guilt, shame, depression, and suicidal ideation.

Eventually, I reached the point of wanting to die and planned on it. Thankfully, I was too weak to carry out the plan (or more likely I really wanted to live and get out of pain), and I eventually checked into a hospital that specializes in OCD. The nine weeks spent there were hell, but changed my life. I argued with my therapist on a regular basis about how I have had the best therapists in the past, and maybe she and they are all mistaken about and that possibly “I may actually be a terrible person.” Remember the words “maybe” and “possibly” because they are terms that I will embrace forever. Treatment gave me a life that I had never had in all of my years. I was finally able to accept myself and surround myself with other sufferers. Throughout that time, I completed four hours of ERP daily, which included shouting out my fears, telling all staff members in the building, making signs, and watching documentaries. I finally returned home and for the first time I do not want to die. I have accepted this as a part of me, but not all of me. I am happy, living, growing, and supporting others on this journey. Am I cured? Hell, NO! Am I a terrible human being? Maybe. Living with the uncertainty and taking risks are the keys. But I am choosing to live with this illness, unpleasant thoughts, and for once, not to play the game, but to mindfully observe the game.
Dominique

This is the first installment of a ” Sufferer’s Forum,” which is a new feature intended to inform people about the course, nature and treatment of OCD. There is a good deal of misinformation out there, made worse by inaccurate portrayals of OCD in popular media. Often, people think that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is only present when an person washes their hands too much for fear of contamination or gets stuck checking things repeatedly.

While contamination and checking compulsively are OC issues, they, by no means, captures the true nature and breadth of the problem. OCD is essentially unlimited in the forms and content that it can take. If you can think it, it can be obsessed about. This column will shed some light on the lack of information and misunderstanding of this disabling disorder. If you find yourself or a loved one on the list below I hope these stories will be beneficial and further your understanding of OC and the benefits of an appropriate treatment. Here are some of the more recognizable forms of OCD.

Others’ stories can be one of the best ways to clarify the disorder and it’s remedies, so we will include autobiographical accounts when we can. In order to best insure confidentiality of the individuals sharing their stories all author’s will be asked to remain anonymous. You can ask questions of the author by using the title of the article and forwarding your question to msam.philly@gmail.com or by using the comment form at the bottom of this page. You may want to submit your own story if you believe that it will help another sufferer. Your story may help someone decide that there is hope.

The Story: Selling A Soul!

Imagine you are out shopping, which of course, is something you love to do, and you find that shirt or pair of pants that you absolutely love. You immediately start searching for your size, thinking “Please, please have it.” Then that ugly thought that you fear and try so desperately not to think of, comes into your mind: you’d sell your soul to the devil if they have your size and there it is. Now, of course, being a Christian, you know you would never actually do that, but as an OCD sufferer, you want that certainty that this will not happen. So you put it back on the rack and walk away. Your fear is relieved, for the short term, until it happens again.

It doesn’t end here, though. Next you have just had an interview for a new job that you really want and that thought comes up again that you’d sell your soul if you get the job offer. You immediately say to yourself that you didn’t mean to think that and of course you would never do that. However the real devil, your OCD, keeps making you think, “What if it happens because you thought it?” So you go back and forth obsessing over this. The job offer comes in and you decide to take it all the while trying to relieve your fear that you have just sold your soul by saying you didn’t mean to think that.

A few months go by in your new job and almost every day that thought pops into your head that you’ve sold your soul and now your life is over. Again, you try and relieve the fear by saying you didn’t mean it, but OCD just keeps coming at you causing you to say, “Well, what if you did?” Then the day before a business trip the OCD is acting up and you are out running errands and you see a sign with an arrow pointing down and that is it, that was the sign that you are definitely going to hell and you have sold your soul. So you immediately head home completely distraught that you are doomed to hell and life is over. You are in no shape to head out on the business trip, so you call your boss the night before and tell him you are sick and can’t go on the trip. Needless to say, this did not go over well, and you decide to just resign in order to save yourself from embarrassment.

Unfortunately, for an OCD sufferer, an obsession like this can pop up anytime and affect almost every aspect of your life. These are examples of only a few of the things I’ve lost to my OCD. It’s made me decide not to continue dating the incredibly handsome guy from Italy, who was an atheist, so of course, by dating him it would mean I would go to hell. Worst of all, it made me dread going to Church because I would try so hard not to think of the devil while going up for communion or saying a prayer. So it was easier to just not go to Church.

Now, those of you who don’t suffer from OCD may be thinking this sounds completely crazy and that the people in my life must think I’m completely nuts. However, what you don’t realize is that many of us who suffer from OCD don’t ever want anyone to know so they suffer in silence trying really hard to hide it. Trying really hard to sweep it under the rug and hope it goes away. Unfortunately, it doesn’t and will continue to rob your life of happiness; leaving you constantly stressed, depressed, and generally missing out on living the life you value.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, it could be that you too suffer from OCD and I want you to know that there is help out there. It took me 15 years to find the right help, but I eventually did in the form of Exposure Response Prevention therapy with a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders. The work is hard and causes you to face your greatest fears and learn to live with uncertainty. But what you gain from this work is living the life that you value and not being run by OCD. The OCD will always be there and will continually test you, but with the tools that you learn from the therapy, you will be well equipped to handle it and chose the life you want and not what your OCD demands.

]]>https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/ocd-forum/feed/0The Benefits Of Mindfulness Therapyhttps://www.anxietyocdbala.com/the-benefits-of-mindfulness/
https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/the-benefits-of-mindfulness/#respondTue, 22 Dec 2015 15:05:50 +0000http://anxietyocdbala.com/?p=62Why should you consider joining a mindfulness stress and anxiety management group? The truth is that many, if not all of us, are caught in a mental race to achieve something in our lives. We’re always planning, striving, and stressing about an unknown future. In doing so, we disregard the here and now. Everything that […]

]]>Why should you consider joining a mindfulness stress and anxiety management group?

The truth is that many, if not all of us, are caught in a mental race to achieve something in our lives. We’re always planning, striving, and stressing about an unknown future. In doing so, we disregard the here and now. Everything that happens in between the milestone achievements is eclipsed. The quality and depth of our day-to-day life suffers. We prevent our own happiness.

If you are moving through life this way, a mindfulness stress and anxiety management group (MSAM) is a good place to slow down and get back on track. On track means learning to be present in a way that recaptures awareness, peace, calm and enjoyment. Mindful meditation is a well-traveled path that helps guide you to our inner wisdom and calm. You will learn to:

connect with yourself and what you really value;

live now and not in the future;

experience life with new depth and meaning; and

discover happiness.

If you want stress and anxiety relief, MSAM groups will give you the building blocks to make that happen. MSAM group sessions teach you the practice of mindfulness – how to live in the moment, how to find and share your core values. When you value yourself and your life, it brings more kindness, compassion, peace and calm to the people you love and the world around you.

]]>This brief blog will help you or a loved one become aware of a few missteps that can occur when trying to find help for OCD. The primary goal is to find a professional who has the skill to make both an accurate diagnosis and recommend appropriate treatment for OCD. With OCD we often find that this can be a stressful process.

Here are several problems that we have found interfere or block connecting with an effective course of treatment for OCD. First, sufferers are sometimes unaware that they have OCD even though they are sure that there is clearly something wrong. Misdiagnosis continues to be an issue with OCD. The sufferer may also be stuck in a ritual cycle that they do not know what to do about.They may also be too afraid to stop the rituals. They will avoid treatment because the rituals “feel” safer and they know treatment will challenge that.

The sufferer can also be aware that they have OCD but find it too difficult, embarrassing to admit their specific obsession. For instance, they may be asking themselves “What if I am a pedifile?”, “What if I am gay?” “What if I become violent and harm or kill someone?”

The list of possible content for OCD is essentially endless and is produced by an able imagination. Often the sufferers creative nature finds the most powerful and illogical fears that produce tremendous anxiety. Therefore the OCD content presents as uncomfortably odd or grossly illogical and the sufferer would rather suffer the anxiety than the humiliation.

The reasons mentioned above discourages many individuals from seeking treatment. As a result, it can take years to receive an appropriate diagnosis and then additional years to find an effective treatment. This is not an exaggeration one estimate reports that it can take 14-17 years from onset of symptoms to finding appropriate treatment.

You can start by going to www.anxietyocdbala.com/help-with-ocd or any reputable site. Look at the symptoms listed there and decide if you believe these symptoms describe your problem. If you suspect that you do have OCD the next step is to find the right treatment.

Finding appropriate treatment may have its difficulties as well. My hope is that you will use this information to encourage you to continue your search for a treatment that will work even if the search becomes frustrating and stressful.

Here are a couple of issues you may encounter finding a therapist. The number of OCD-treating professionals is growing, but at present there are simply too few therapists who have specific training or adequate experience treating OCD.

Most psychotherapists practice as generalists treating a wide range of mental health problems. If you are using your insurance your provider may say they have an OCD specialist. I recommend that you speak with the individual therapist and find out their experience. It is wise to ask how many and what kind of OCD cases they have treated.

OCD treatment is somewhat different. While many psychological disorders respond to a generalist approach. Working with OCD we find that the therapist must understand the specifics of the disorder and the treatment strategies that work. A standard generalist psychological approach especially if it is mostly supportive in nature won’t work and it can complicate the problem of OCD by unwittingly providing reassurance. This reassurance unfortunately becomes fuel for OCD rituals keeping a sufferer stuck.

For instance, a supportive approach often utilizes reassurance in an effort to be compassionate. This effort is aimed at helping the individual feel better in the moment but in the final analysis it stalls their ability to get better.

Compassion for a person suffering with OCD is found in helping them face their worst fears produced by the OCD and learning to cope with the fear. Not by reassuring them that nothing bad is likely to happen.

While OCD treatment is specialized it is not complex or beyond the grasp of the general clinical practitioner or sufferer. In fact, learning to do exposure response prevention is not difficult at all. The difficult part is being experienced in practice enough to help people motivate to do this anxiety producing treatment, while insuring that you have targeted the problem accurately. The specialist must understand and have experienced the counter intuitive nature of OCD and be skilled at helping the sufferer live with significant anxiety as they cope with their fear.

It is not common knowledge that OCD requires a specialist’s treatment though. That is why I am writing this blog. In order to have a good treatment outcome it is imparetive to find a person who specializes in the treatment of OCD and who has worked with many cases over a long period of time.

Often a sufferer is not aware of the unique nature of their disorder and in desperation will commit to any form of treatment intervention for hope of improvement and relief. To an unexperienced person “therapy is therapy” right? As often happens the individual becomes attached to the therapist, their kindness and understanding. This attachment without appropriate treatment strategies leads to working in an in- affective way that will confound even their best efforts.

On occasion even a seasoned therapist will take on an OCD case believing that their favorite modality can handle the problem. Sufferers who are not being seen by an appropriately trained specialist can often spend time doing treatments that aren’t helpful or worse ultimately end up believing that they are untreatable because of repeated poor outcomes. Unfortunately, as a result of the difficulties finding and then receiving ineffective treatment, some sufferers simply give up.

Please don’t give up. Perhaps after reading this post you can start or restart your efforts at getting better. Both the AMA and APA recommend exposure response prevention as a first line psychological treatment for OCD. There are people who devote their entire practice to treating OCD and a full range of anxiety disorders.

If you or someone you care about has OCD please start with a search at IOCDF.org or ADAA.org for an individual in your area who is qualified and experienced in working with OCD. Good luck and stay strong searching until you find someone. It will be worth it.

]]>https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/finding-the-right-ocd-treatment/feed/0From CBT to Mindfulness or MBCThttps://www.anxietyocdbala.com/from-cbt-to-mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy/
https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/from-cbt-to-mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy/#respondWed, 24 Dec 2014 17:40:09 +0000http://www.anxietyocdbala.com/?p=572There are a multitude of therapeutic approaches that help decrease human distress and suffering. In this article I will talk about two that have been influential and successful in understanding and treating many mental health and quality of life issues. Both are based in a present moment orientation and represent a welcome joining of eastern […]

There are a multitude of therapeutic approaches that help decrease human distress and suffering. In this article I will talk about two that have been influential and successful in understanding and treating many mental health and quality of life issues. Both are based in a present moment orientation and represent a welcome joining of eastern and western thinking that continues to bring sorely needed understanding to the issue of human suffering.

In the late 1970’s, Dr. Aaron T. Beck popularized a cognitive psychological model based on his clinical observations. Beck’s simple but powerful idea was thoughts influence emotions and behavior. This idea, while new to western psychological practice, was not new to humanity as a whole, Buddha observed it over 2500 years ago. This idea in Beck’s and other competent hands has shaped western conceptual and practical work with many mental health issues.

In his cognitive model, Beck states that thoughts can be, in whole or in part, wrong or distorted. Such distortions cause needless distress. He continues by saying that it is not a situation in and of itself that causes us to react in ways that cause us distress, but instead it is our thinking or attached meaning (thinking that includes a comprehensive structure of personal rules and beliefs) and our overall perception of the situation that causes the reaction. And finally, that our distress can be mediated by correcting distorted thinking, letting go of, or replacing non-useful thinking, or by switching to problem-solving if something tangible requires change.

As we continue to learn what works to helps people cope better with distress and suffering through experience, other methods continue to creatively evolve. The most recent in the evolution of psychological strategies that is influencing treatment is called mindfulness or mindfulness based cognitive therapy. Mindfulness-based treatments are borrowed from and are more in line with an enduring eastern spiritual notion that it is wiser to step outside of the flow of thinking, feeling, sensations, and urges and observe their very nature while being present to the experience from a less reactive perspective.

Being able to be less reactive to our constant flow of thinking and sensing provides us with much greater psychological flexibility. We can learn to see rather than be our “thinking” and past learning when needed. While our brains work by designed to hold onto previous learning as fact we all experience the need to adjust old outdated so called “facts” that are wrong or have lost usefulness. We update information often in a wide range of areas from a belief in the tooth fairy to political views, religious views and if we are wise unhelpful and hurtful beliefs or views about ourselves and others.

Mindfulness, with practice, gives us the means to be able view our internal and external world objectively, to see and experience life more consistently as it is, to see beyond the error of previous learning. It provides us the means to welcome the whole of our life experience with kindness, without judgment and outside of learned constructs as well.

This does not mean that thinking or conceptual understanding is unimportant. However, it does mean that thoughts are not facts and that while we cannot control having our thoughts, beliefs or just ignore conditioning, we can choose which thoughts and patterns are useful in our valued path in living in each new moment. In essence, we can learn to change our relationship with previous learning and the sense world that accompanies it.

Like mindfulness, Beck’s model is also based in a present moment orientation and is mindful, but focuses less on the overall nature of the way in which we relate to the mind and body as they function separately and in relationship to one another.

Beck focuses on the idea that a thought and belief can be wrong or distorted and when corrected rationally decreases distress. While that is of course true and very useful mindfulness helps us experience thoughts and beliefs connected with a sophisticated interplay between sense experience and thinking and thinking and sense experience.

Further, mindfulness demonstrates through experience that our beliefs and conditioning, including sense experiences, act like a complete and fixed self. This idea of a fixed self can keep us stuck in harmful patterns.

In other words mindfulness can help us understand that our world of past experience does not reflect the whole of who we are. Instead, a mindfulness practice can provide an increasing ability to be preset to this moment. It helps us become aware that past learning that appears as “fact” and can represent a smaller invention of self, the self that we believe we are, our ego if you will is not a true representation. This conceptual self or understanding that has been learned and/or conditioned developmentally does not reflect our true and complete nature, but instead reflects the thinking or doing minds summary evaluation of experience as self.

It has been my clinical experience over twenty years that applying socratic reasoning (rational questioning, the basic rational testing tool of cognitive therapy) to a person’s basic negative belief of self or core beliefs does not yield a satisfactory change in the relationship to underlying feelings, sensing and emotion.

When reality testing a core belief in treatment the person will say they “get it” but they don’t feel it. They understand that their thinking is wrong but they report that somehow they just feel “not as good as others” for instance. “No matter what I do I just can’t get past this feeling that I’m less than others.”It is not sufficient to limit our focus to repairing distorted thinking and relieving emotional distress in the short-term if a long-term durable change is ultimately what we are looking for.

Memories of experience are are not held in cognition only. Implicit memory (memory out of immediate awareness) is informed originally by sensation and the gestalt of the experience, if you will. In other words, you feel all the senses dominant in the original experience coupled with thinking as a state of mind. So, If feelings effect thinking and thinking effects feelings we must address the whole of the felt sense. Secondly we take thinking literally and use it as a direct and accurate reflection of “self” and accept thoughts, beliefs and conditioning in general as facts. As mentioned above, our mind takes our experiences in life and turns them into “who we believe we are.” The brain likes summarizing information into fixed conclusions.

A mindfulness perspective would support that we are not our thoughts, feelings and beliefs in a permanent way, but that it is the nature of the mind to come to summary evaluations. For instance, consider the thought: I have been sad and depressed so often that I am just a depressed person. Does being depressed really make us unable to ever achieve an un-depressed moment?

If we experience something enough, our minds will consider the information “fact.” The brain efficiently makes summary evaluations to save energy among other reasons. It is helpful for our brain to link or chunk information when learning to drive a car so we can learn to be a “driver” but not at all helpful to take multiple failed behavior to describe the whole person as a “failure”.

Basically relearning concepts each time we are faced with an issue is vast use of energy and the brain likes to mold experience into repeatable useable “Fact”. Therefore, a concept (about self) can be held in the form of a belief that acts like a fact or truth that influences choices in this moment. Beck would call this global reasoning and have us challenge this, rationally.

This rational challenge or socratic reasoning used in cognitive therapy would help us understand that people don’t completely fall in one or another category. That if you have not been depressed even for a moment, that you have that ability to be “not depressed,” and therefore are not a totally depressed person. And, if you are sometimes are not depressed, then you have the ability to increase your non-depressed state with practice.

The rational, intellectual explanation does not seem to manage the intricate historical felt sense piece of the problem, however. People do feel better when they believe that they are not a totally depressed person at the moment of rational challenge. But the next time they feel sad if they have been feeling sad for a long time they will go down the old road of habit or conceptual self very quickly.

A mindfulness approach would see the idea of one’s whole self being depressed as a person’s belief or construct, as well, that is presenting as fact. But in actuality is not reflecting reality in this moment because this belief is a mental construct, simply the result of the way in which the mind learns. It would note that self is infinitely larger than the elements of this construct, and that the construct also includes a sophisticated interaction between mind and body.

Helpful research in the 80’s shows us that in additions to our thoughts the body, our sensations and feelings play a significant part in influencing our thinking. In fact there is an inescapable cyclic link between thinking, sensing and feeling. If we try to understand and better manage our lives using only one element of this complex system we may be confounded by limited or short lived results as we see with conditions that tend to relapse or for individuals who do not respond at all to treatment.

Mindfulness provides a comprehensive means for personal objective introspection. It gives us a method for stepping outside of the constant flow of a full array of thinking, feeling and sensing and learn to become less reactive to our immediate perceptions of “reality” ( colored by conceptual understanding and conditioning) that may or may not be accurate to this new moment. We all possess the ability to experience awareness of our thinking and sensing.

In this regard a mindfulness practice produces more psychological flexibility. We are able to be aware of our internal and external world in a way that leads to a decrease in our immediate reaction to non-healthy patterns. It is natural and normal in our culture to believe that you are what and who you think you are. Remember our mind does summary evaluation for convenance. If not managed, any previous learning can become our guide for this moment and lead us with information that is less than useful for this new moment and is active just out of our immediate awareness.

A committed mindfulness practice helps us become less reactive to the initial internal thought or feeling that presents itself as “fact”. With practice we can learn that thoughts are not as solid and factual as they first appeared therefore allowing more space and time for thoughtful present oriented choice. A choice that is more in line with your personal value in this moment instead of a belief or pattern that we are reacting to automatically.

Remember this moment like the breathe is new-always but your learning, habits and patterns are not. With practice you can better see your internal process rather than automatically reacting to less than useful past learning, patterns and conditioning. Coming to know the very nature in which our brain and body operate in tandem that produces suffering can help release us from normal but distress producing mistakes of a misperception of reality. Mindfulness practice can help us recognize:

That emotions are a fusion of thoughts, feelings, impulses, and bodily sensations that together form a general “state of mind”. Emotions have a virtual reality felt sense that can be congruent to reality or not.

Feelings and emotions are not dangerous, in and of themselves, they are the result of a thought or image forming a perception of danger or reaction to real and present danger.

Thoughts can drive our mood and feelings and moods and feelings can drive our thoughts.

The mind does not exist in isolation and is exquisitely responsive to many body systems.

Affect, what shows on your face and your body in terms of posture, effects mood and mood effects thinking and body reactions-the relationship is cyclical and complex.

Trying to fix or get rid of an emotion with thinking traps us in the emotion.

Experiencing the emotion generally allows it to pass.

Examining the thought alone for error misses the complexity of the interaction between the mind and body.

We tend to depend on rational thinking to solve most problems in living leaving little acceptance for emotion, all of our sense perceptions and behavior as influences.

We can over time learn to be present with things as they are not as we want them to be. We all have the ability to be with the whole of our experience of being just as we are. This does not mean being complacent it means being fully alive in each moment.

I will talk a bit about the practical problems with trying to think a feeling away in the next article. Practice mindfulness!

]]>https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/from-cbt-to-mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy/feed/0Would You Rather Be Right or Happy?https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/rather-right-happy/
https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/rather-right-happy/#commentsWed, 15 Oct 2014 21:44:14 +0000http://www.anxietyocdbala.com/?p=546Have you ever tried a Chinese finger trap. It’s fun but frustrating. The fun comes as you learn a lesson in the futility of an unwise struggle. The frustration comes if you don’t figure out how to escape and continue the struggle. Imagine sliding your index fingers of each hand into the woven tube. You […]

]]>Have you ever tried a Chinese finger trap. It’s fun but frustrating. The fun comes as you learn a lesson in the futility of an unwise struggle. The frustration comes if you don’t figure out how to escape and continue the struggle. Imagine sliding your index fingers of each hand into the woven tube. You then try to remove your fingers and as you do the tube tightens. The harder you try the tighter the tube becomes around your fingers.

The only way to easily extract yourself is to give up the struggle and push your fingers together loosening the hold.

So, in order to escape the trap you have to notice that pulling to get out of the trap isn’t working. In fact, the more you pull to free yourself the tighter the trap becomes. The object is to get your fingers out of the tube, right? But in order to to so, you must accept that what you are doing isn’t working. Then you have to decide to give up pulling. Seems to make good logical sense doesn’t it. All you have to do is just notice when something isn’t working, stop it, and choose something else. Easy to say when you aren’t actually in the struggle.

Although intellectually stopping and choosing something else seems to be a reasonable way to approach things, in our daily lives we don’t often act so rationally. The truth is we want to be right in the moment (because of our habit and reactive mind) more than we want to remember to choose the rational and wise option! The “doing mind” (thinking without fully experiencing the moment as it is) will just have us reacting, as a way to avoid failure. When we are not in the struggle, however, we will all say that it is best to be wise.

But in the throws of the difficulty we can believe or “feel” that being right is being smart, safe and powerful. We just want the gratification that comes with achieving or winning. Wanting to be right becomes a habit, and then it becomes second nature, which means that it is out of our immediate conscious awareness. We think, “What if we are not right, we will be seen as stupid or weak?” “Never admit that you are wrong,” we say. “Never stop trying no matter what,” becomes our operating belief. In addition, we “feel” that the opposite of being right is not just being wrong but also being weak at a personal level. Most likely we don’t notice any of these thoughts, we just “feel” like we have to keep pulling.

I do this simple experiment with the trap in my mindfulness groups and some people will just pull until the tube frays or breaks. They laugh about it, but when I ask why they just kept pulling until it broke they will often say, “I just didn’t want to let this little thing beat me.” Or they say, ” I wasn’t about to give up.” In our society, “giving up” is often seen as being beaten, showing weakness, or admitting to some other personal failing. Giving up is also seen as accepting things passively or as an end or finish rather than a place to pause make space, take a second look and learn. Giving up is wisdom when what you are choosing to let go of is a futile task that is maintaing the struggle.

Having the attitude that “right makes might” causes us to struggle and suffer unnecessarily, as you can see with the finger trap. It can seduce us into choosing unworkable strategies over and over again, producing a sense of resignation, defeat and dismay. Why wouldn’t you keep pulling against the trap, if you were taught to never give up, to tolerate as much pain as you can without giving up. Isn’t giving up shameful?

In this example giving up the struggle was actually required before a solution could be found. Research tells us that when we try harder and harder in a way that does not yield expected positive results, we experience more anxiety, depression and exhaustion and potentially burnout. Experiments have also demonstrated that when, for whatever reason, we are fearful or in an avoidance orientation or feel trapped, our capacity for creative problem solving decreases.

Trying harder and harder to be right or doing the same old thing with a poor outcome puts the mind in avoidance mode. When the mind is in an avoidance orientation, we simply are not as capable of finding a creative answer to our problems. So, being stubbornly right in this example created and maintained the problem for those people who did not stop pulling, which in turn led to frustration and a decreased ability to problem solve. In frustration, they would just break the finger trap. But what happens if you feel trapped in a way that you just can’t seem to break out of.

‘The spirit in which we do something is often as important as the act itself.”

Look at the picture above. What are your thoughts, mood and orientation? Approach/Avoid?

Look at the picture above. What are your thoughts, mood and orientation? Approach/Avoid?

These photos are only the smallest indicator of movement toward an orientation. What if you had a string of negative events or situations or you continued to try the same unworkable things repeatedly, perhaps feeling stuck? A sense of being stuck or trapped activates the avoidance orientation decreasing your sense of playfulness, creativity, and can eventually lead to helplessness and depression, if chronic. You just come to expect that there is nothing to do to help yourself. Your thinking becomes mired in remembering the reasons you shouldn’t do something because it won’t work out, or you remember the reasons that you you can’t, rather than looking for creative solutions. But, all is not lost.

If you are trapped in this powerful sense of helplessness, it can be broken over time. With practice you can become aware of the situations, thinking patterns, and feelings that lead you into an unproductive negative state of mind. You can better recognize when you are about to go into the depressive thinking spiral. While you can’t stop thinking, you can learn how to relate differently to your thoughts and relate differently to your feelings, as well. You can begin to look more closely at the usefulness of your thoughts and the feelings that they activate and become less reactive to them.

Simply learning to recognize thinking and patterns of thinking and feeling begins to weaken their hold.

Daily mindful practice helps you begin to understand that thoughts are not facts and also enhances your psychological flexibility.

You learn that your “doing” thinking mind is a virtual reality. A mind that always feels like reality for the purposes enhancing our ability for useful invention and practical problem solving, but is really thought not reality. Our brains are great problem solving machines, but not everything we think is correct, and the brain is perhaps filled with outdated useless information or can be completely wrong.

Our brain is indeed a wonderful thinking machine with a tremendous amount of learned information, but it is very poor at auto-correction errors. In other words, we must learn the nature of how our brain works and learn practice management skills when it is not being used to our best healthy advantage. With practice, mindfulness gives us the means to do this by teaching us to observe the “doing mind” without being reactive to it. With practice, we begin to enhance our ability to see things just as they are in this moment and without judgment.

I know it seems that we have taken a big leap from the dilemma of the finger trap, but maybe not. The people in my groups who stop the struggle, pause, and become mindful in order to see the situation as it is are open to creative possibilities. They became aware that pulling wasn’t working and when they stopped pulling they noticed that the pressure lessened on the fingers. You can guess what dawns on them next. And what about the good folks who broke the finger trap in frustration? Well, they told us they were in the “doing,” automatic, thinking mind, reacting to multiple thought directives to “do or die.”

If you are stuck reacting to your “doing” mind in ways that cause you to suffer repeatedly, that cause you to repeat patterns that you are unaware of, I invite you to start or continue your mindful meditation practice. The advantages far outweigh the price of practice.

]]>https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/rather-right-happy/feed/2Where Was I Just Then? Mindfulness Meditationhttps://www.anxietyocdbala.com/just-session-one-msam/
https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/just-session-one-msam/#commentsSat, 17 May 2014 19:45:26 +0000http://www.anxietyocdbala.com/?p=256Week One MSAM: Identifying our thoughts, images and automatic reactivety to them. Seeing our thoughts instead of being our thoughts. For many years as I ate a meal I noticed that often the last bite of whatever I was eating tasted so good. Better than all the other bites, in fact. I have to admit that this […]

For many years as I ate a meal I noticed that often the last bite of whatever I was eating tasted so good. Better than all the other bites, in fact. I have to admit that this did catch my attention each time it happened. I had the urge to ponder this curious little experience. But soon my mind, like the young woman in the picture, was on to some other tidbit of life, racing on. Dragging my awareness with it into my virtual reality of thinking. I like to talk while at a meal. I enjoy planning, analyzing and just having fun thinking with friends and family while eating. It was not until I had practiced mindfulness meditation for a while that this last bite thing began to seem more interesting to me, interesting enough for me to learn to slow down a bit and really look at it.

Why was the last bite the best, no big deal but what’s up with that? Well, it began to dawn on me that at the last bite of food I also became more interested in it, more focused on it. I mean I thought, oh this is the last bite and then I paid much more attention to what I was eating. So, it was not so much about the last bite that was making the difference in my enjoyment but more what I was doing with my attention during the last bite. I started paying attention to my experience. After all I was about to finish my food and I like food…I moved my attention to the food on purpose and without judgement and in reality started savoring what I was eating. (Not rocket science, right?) I started using other senses naturally to experience my food and found a much richer experience. I moved my awareness effortlessly, and didn’t even realize that I was doing it, to the taste, texture, color, and smell of the food. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to enjoy my entire meal like this.

Yum!

You don’t have to wonder much about where his awareness is now do you? Remember how you enjoyed things as a child when they were good?

I don’t mean to rag on thinking. There really is nothing wrong with it, analyzing being creative or enjoying genius with your ability to think. The real issue is not so much about thinking. Problems occur when we focus almost exclusively on thinking as reality while excluding our experience.

Take a moment right now, close your eyes and make a mental image of your right hand, don’t feel it, just think an image…see the palm, the top of the hand, the fingers and thumb. Now hold your right hand out from your body and sense your hand. Feel the air moving across the hand if it is…is there tingling…perhaps your hand is cool, cold or warm…just notice. What did you experience that was different between thinking about your hand and noticing it? Chances are good that experiencing your hand gave you a sense of knowing and in a way that was not questioned.

Because of our busy pace we have stopped practicing focusing on one thing at a time and often use our mind to make a virtual reality. We invent or remember what was sensed by thinking it. We try and figure everything out from what to do about something to who we are as people,good, bad or lovable, unlovable. It seems vital to keep our minds going full tilt on as many things as we can until we get ahead. We seem almost afraid of letting go of using our thinking for all matters human. The more things that we focus on in our minds that run us the more we become lost to our other senses and overall knowing through experience. The problem is that we are out of balance with our whole experience of living. The busy mind tells us what to do to succeed and insists on moving forward at all costs. Even if we are not recognizing the signals of an overly tired body and empty spirit a downcast sense of self or even a broken heart.

Getting your balance back includes relearning to slow down and beginning to notice your full experience instead of just using your minds virtual reality as your only guide. Mindful meditation practice is an avenue or path to enhance your ability to pay attention to this moment just as it is. Next session we will discuss getting back in touch with the body through mindful awareness. Please post your questions and comment as you like. I welcome everyone who wants to follow the eight week course. While the blog is used to make only the main point of the sessions you may use the meditations on anxietyocdbala.com and ask any questions you like. MSAM members or graduates post your questions, comments or suggestions here. Click Comment at the bottom of the page.

]]>https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/just-session-one-msam/feed/3What is mindfulness meditation?https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/what-is-mindfulness-meditation/
https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/what-is-mindfulness-meditation/#commentsMon, 03 Feb 2014 01:21:06 +0000http://msamhpkirby.wordpress.com/?p=32What is meditation? The Pali word for meditation is ‘bhavana’ which means ‘to make grow’ or ‘to develop’. What is mindfulness? Mindfulness meditation is what comes as the result of paying attention to something in this moment, on purpose and without judgement. Adapted from Jon Kabat-Zinn Audio-Mindfulness for Beginners. I’m sitting here preparing material so […]

What is meditation? The Pali word for meditation is ‘bhavana’ which means ‘to make grow’ or ‘to develop’.

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness meditation is what comes as the result of paying attention to something in this moment, on purpose and without judgement. Adapted from Jon Kabat-Zinn Audio-Mindfulness for Beginners.

I’m sitting here preparing material so I can make as clear an explanation about what mindfulness meditation is that I can — and I feel a bit stuck. I find myself wanting to just safely define mindfulness rather than taking the risk of exposing myself by sharing my personal experience.

Mindfulness meditation is best understood through practice. However, if you are not established in your practice, I hope that sharing some of my experience will help you get a sense of what mindful meditation is. First and foremost, I want to tell you that my practice continues to help me with the myriad of daily difficulties in living. More and more over time, mindfulness helps me live and experience and value my life rather than just follow the unrelenting, intricate, seductive and painful stories of my mind over and over again with no change.

If I’m honest, my mindfulness meditation practice has probably saved my life, not literally but emotionally. Maybe literally as well. I finished meditating a few minutes before I started this blog and found myself censoring and not wanting to write about the internal sense of beauty and connection I felt. My thought says, “Don’t tell them that. They will think…” The question becomes, do I choose to be limited by my fear or honestly share what I value.

The experience of beauty and connection was a reminder to notice all that I have or more accurately all that is here in this life to be valued and cherished if I will allow myself to become aware of it. I did not have to do a thing to deserve it. Committing to this moment helps me see that. It might seem like I’m saying that being in the moment makes all of my troubles go away, I’m not. I’m saying that I am working to change my relationship with this moment so that I see what is actually here, beauty and pain and learn to work with both as best I can. This might be a good time for some definitions of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is: “Paying attention on purpose in the present moment as if your life depended on it non-judgmentally.” Mindfulness for Beginners, Audio-Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Mindfulness is about being fully aware of whatever is happening in the present moment, without filters or the lenses of judgement.” A Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Stahl, B., Glodstein, E.

How does paying attention in the moment help? By the nature of how our minds work and the frantic pace of living in general, we end up spending a great deal of our time in our minds thinking, for example, worrying, planning, rehearsing. That means that our awareness is on the thinking and not necessarily on experiencing. Thinking is a virtual reality that higher form mammals posses and have used to great advantage. Mindlessly thinking on autopilot, however, can take our attention away from a pleasant event that is right before us.

For instance, when you take a shower and you are thinking about what you are going to do today, or remembering something from the past, or planning for the future, you are constructing a virtual reality in your mind. This is both a good and a bad thing

Nothing is wrong with this per se unless this kind of inattention happens most of your day, each day in the week each week in the month, on and on. You may be missing the deep pleasure to be had while experiencing the luxury of a warm shower. It would be ok if it were just the shower. I know we are all so busy but what if we are missing our lives and our children’s lives due to our habit of over thinking verses experiencing? There really is a significant difference between thinking about other things while in the shower and having the experience of a shower.

Perhaps you can actually do the meditation now to get an experiential sense of what mindfulness meditation is and see for yourself. One small caution before you start. Even seasoned practitioners of meditation are often dragged into the thought stream and they bring themselves back to the anchor, being pleased that they noticed they were in thought.

It will be the same for you. Learn to be kind with yourself as you come back to the focus of your breath in this meditation. Just follow the instructions and stay with the sensation of your breath as best you can. Click on the play arrow below.

]]>https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/what-is-mindfulness-meditation/feed/1What Mindful Meditation Practice is Nothttps://www.anxietyocdbala.com/what-mindful-meditation-practice-is-not/
https://www.anxietyocdbala.com/what-mindful-meditation-practice-is-not/#commentsSun, 24 Nov 2013 02:20:36 +0000http://msamhpkirby.wordpress.com/?p=9There are many myths and misunderstandings regarding what a mindful meditation practice is. So let’s start from the end. I’ll explain what I mean by starting from the end. I have a friend who, while in music school years ago, used to practice all the wrong notes in a musical scale on his saxophone. This […]

]]>There are many myths and misunderstandings regarding what a mindful meditation practice is. So let’s start from the end. I’ll explain what I mean by starting from the end. I have a friend who, while in music school years ago, used to practice all the wrong notes in a musical scale on his saxophone. This seemed a bit odd to me so I asked why he did this. He said, if you know the notes that don’t work well then you are more likely to choose the ones that do work without hunting. You can express yourself musically without thinking. First he learned what the scale was not…hmm.

As I teach a mindful stress & anxiety management (MSAM) course I notice that by the third session or even later I have a few members talking about how frustrated they are at not being able to “empty their minds”. The first two weeks are replete with information about what mindfulness meditation is and how we are not trying to block or get rid of our thoughts. It appears that with our busy schedules and frantic lives that sometimes moving forward with the information the we think we know can block the moment of learning that is in front of us. (Not really so difficult to not be mindful in a beginners mindfulness group).

Without a little first hand knowledge and experience it is pretty easy to remember bits and pieces of what you have heard over time and just go with that thinking and being sure that you have it covered. But did you really have it covered? No worries most if not all members in the group get what a mindful meditation practice is by the end of the class. So with the intention of starting our practice off in an informed way here are some things that a mindful meditation practice is not.

Mindfulness is not about emptying your mind of thoughts.

Mindfulness in not a relaxation exercise. Although relaxation can occur as a side effect.

Mindfulness is not a religion.

Mindfulness is not escape from pain. Although with practice you may learn to relate to your pain differently.

Mindfulness is not about transcending ordinary life. Although you may with practice end up enjoying the moments that you have more and more.

Mindfulness is not about becoming emotionless and unmotivated.

I will talk about what mindfulness is next time. I will also get on the learning curve to practice inserting a few formal guided meditations.